mandolin | All right, that DOES IT!

Got up this morning reluctantly, got my tea and logged onto my e-mail to find the following review for "Sharp Edges":

From: lazybones()

This is a well-written story with a believable plot that merely extends the world of the Witchblade into the Buffy-verse, which I have enjoyed a great deal. Whilst I can understand that writing can be extremely difficult (my own idea's rarely if ever make paper) in the last 14 mouths (Aug 2002 - Dec 2003) you have posted FIVE new stories and not even bothered to update the authors notes on "Sharp Edges" (these notes are by the way a violation of ff.net regulations). Whilst I do hope that you continue to publish your stories, as I believe that you are quite a good writer I do wish that you would finish that which you have already begun.

Now of all the "finish the story, dammit!" reviews I've gotten, this has to be the most eloquent and well-thought-out. But the second half of it was still callous (did it occur to the reviewer that the Author's Notes haven't been updated because ff.net changed their regulations?) and didn't get what was going on.

The 5 stories in between were explicitly written in the hopes of killing my writer's block. But apparently people see this as callousness and ignoring my readers.

And this review, while a lot nicer than most of the reviews of this type, is the straw that broke the camel's back. The rest of this rant is up at ff.net...

I have been considering doing this for a while now, but lazybones' unsigned review has finally given me the incentive to go through with it.

I'm pulling "Sharp Edges" and "The Key and the Sword." It's bad enough being stuck on both of these. Having people bitch at me about not finishing them after many late nights staying up til 3 am struggling to get something more done on them that isn't a piece of crap only makes it worse. Especially when they do it publicly and anonymously and don't have the guts to e-mail me personally.

Contrary to popular belief, I have been trying to work on these. Inspiration for them has more or less dried up, and spending hours trying to force the words to please my appreciative reviewers (and shut up the unkind ones) has yielded a lot less sleep and very little in the way of progress.

I can't do this anymore. I know there have been a lot of lovely, appreciative, kind reviewers who have been anticipating new chapters with baited breath - and you guys are the reason I've resisted doing this for so long. But you know what? It's not worth this crap.

So to the rest of you: YOU wish I could finish what's been started? What do you think I've been doing in the wee hours of the morning. You think I'm doing this to spite you? Has it occurred to you that this has been driving me as insane, if not MORE so, than you? It's bad enough not to see new parts of a story, but it's worse to sit in front of a computer for three hours and turn out ONE SCENE that's so awful it needs to be chucked anyway. To spend hours killing new story ideas that keep popping up in the hopes they won't distract you from the story that's gone stale and cold through frustration, arm pain, and Real Life. I have driven myself to tears over trying to force new parts, and setting the story aside has not helped.

I'm cleaning the slate and starting over. I apologize to those who've been wonderful and supportive in these last 18 months of writer's block, muscle pain, and creative burnout. You are the reason I've been staying up late and struggling with stories that WILL NOT COME because I want to have something to give back to my supporters. But every spiteful complaint only serves to kill the flames of inspiration.

To those who have screamed at me about never finishing anything as if I'm intentionally stalling to spite you: that was not intentional. But THIS is. I blame myself as much as any of you, but you have finally pushed me into this. I should have done this MONTHS ago. I'm mad at ungrateful reviewers, mad at my lack of inspiration, and utterly pissed off at myself.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a "pity me" attempt to get reviewers to write in and say, "Don't toss the stories! They're great, we don't mind waiting!" This is not an attempt to shake my fist at the impatient and clueless reviewers and say, "See what you did?" This is my fault. I'm mad at the unkind reviewers and pissed off at myself. I'm just explaining WHY I've yanked these stories.

Any hate mails about pulling these stories will be deleted since I know they're from the same people who flamed me for being unable to finish. Actual messages and mature expressions of disappointment will be treated with the respect they deserve (I do know the difference).

I need to start over, clean up, sleep better this year. Something tells me that this is a start.

Again, thanks for the support. And thanks for the flames - because as immature as they are, they gave me a push.